skip to main |
skip to sidebar
A shibboleth is any distinguishing practice that is indicative of one's social or regional origin. It usually refers to features of language, and particularly to a word whose pronunciation identifies its speaker as being a member or not a member of a particular group...
Read more...
Reb (Yiddish: רעב) is a Yiddish honorific traditionally used for Orthodox Jewish men. It is not a rabbinic title; it is the equivalent of the English "mister". In writing it is abbreviated as 'ר.
Read More...
Vexillology is the scholarly study of flags. The word is a synthesis of the Latin word vexillum, meaning "flag", and the suffix -logy, meaning "study of". The vexillum was a particular type of flag used by Roman legions during the classical era; its name is a diminutive form of the word vela meaning sail, and thus literally means "little sail". Unlike most modern flags, which are suspended from a pole or mast along a vertical side, the square vexillum was suspended from a horizontal crossbar along its top side, which was attached to a spear.
More...
from wikipedia:
The pigpen cipher (sometimes called the masonic cipher or Freemason's cipher) is a simple substitution cipher exchanging letters for symbols based on a grid. The use of symbols is no impediment to cryptanalysis however, and cryptanalysis is identical to that of other simple substitution schemes. The example key shows one way the letters can be assigned to the grid.
The scheme was used so often by the Freemasons that it is often called the Freemason's cipher. They began using it in the early 1700s to keep their records private and for correspondence (Kahn, 1967, p.~772; Newton, 1998, p. 113). Due to the simplicity of the cipher, it is still used by schoolchildren today.More...
